Berkeley resident Gordon Graham says Marin Avenue’s new layout has been a success.

Graham, who lives on Marin near the Albany border, said the traffic moves better and it’s safer to cross the street. The reconfiguration, he said, has been “excellent.”

“As far as my experience, there’s no downside to it,” Graham said.

The city of Albany’s traffic consultant on the project and Berkeley city staff members also have given the project a thumbs-up. In fact, a memo from consultant DMJM Harris to the Albany city staff says the rearranging of Marin “should be considered a success.”

“The project’s primary goals of providing a safer environment for pedestrian and bicycle travel have been accomplished,” the memo says. “These benefits have been achieved without unacceptable negative consequences for automobile travel.”

Earlier this month, the Albany City Council accepted the findings of the company’s one-year monitoring results, in which it compared data taken before and after Marin’s layout was changed.

The avenue used to have two lanes in each direction, but in 2005 the street was rearranged. It now has one lane in each direction, a center left-turn lane and bike lanes.

But some residents in Albany and Berkeley say the project has come with negative consequences.

“To me it seems like a more dangerous situation,” said Kathy Rohrer, who lives at the corner of Marin and Ramona avenues.

About 15 accidents have taken place within a block of her house since June, she said. The traffic backs up in both directions from the traffic light at Santa Fe Avenue. Rohrer said she thinks drivers fail to realize the slowing traffic and don’t stop in time before they reach the backup.

Rohrer said she has seen so many accidents, she tries to avoid Marin when she can.

Other residents also say they avoid Marin.

But according to the one-year monitoring results, no diversions of traffic to other streets were discovered.

The one-year monitoring results found that traffic volumes on Marin have decreased by an average of about 24 percent, speeds have increased slightly, travel times have generally remained the same, and pedestrians have increased crossing times but have safer crossings.

The study also found decreased traffic throughout the area studied, which included Marin, parallel streets on both sides and some cross streets. Rainy conditions at the time the data was collected in April was one likely contributor to the decrease in traffic, said Bill Burton of DMJM Harris.

The increase in speeds is expected with the decrease in traffic. Burton said if there were the same amount of traffic as before, the speeds would have been the same or lower.

Traffic conditions on Marin change week to week, month to month and season to season, Burton said. The data needed to be collected exactly one year after the initial information was gathered, he said.

“We were really held hostage to that particular week,” Burton said. “There’s certainly nothing wrong with the data.”

A written report from the Berkeley city manager says the city staff considers the new layout an improvement over the previous configuration.

Attorneys for Berkeley and Albany are awaiting a court date for oral arguments in connection with a lawsuit Berkeley resident Ray Chamberlin filed to stop the project.

In January 2006, Alameda County Superior Court Judge Bonnie Sabraw ordered Berkeley to look at the project again in response to Chamberlin’s suit, but the decision did not affect Albany’s portion of the project because Chamberlin filed the lawsuit beyond the 30-day statute of limitations.

That decision has been appealed by both Berkeley and Chamberlin, who asked that the decision affect Albany as well.

Regardless of the court date, the project has moved forward — and even more changes are coming to Marin.

When the Albany City Council voted to accept the results of the one-year monitoring, it also authorized the Traffic and Safety Commission and city staff to implement several modifications, as funding allows. Among the adopted recommendations is increasing enforcement efforts east of Curtis Street, where traffic travels faster.

One of those changes is already in the works.

New traffic loop detectors, which allow traffic signals to give the appropriate amount of green-light time to the side streets, are being installed at Masonic Avenue and Marin as part of repaving work.

The city also has applied for grant money to replace the traffic lights and loop detectors at Santa Fe and Marin. Burton said the city will investigate whether new loop detectors need to be installed at Peralta Avenue and Marin.

Other modifications, including enhancing the crosswalk stripping, adding “keep clear” designations, widening the right westbound lane at Marin and San Pablo avenues and painting curbs red at corners of Marin, are expected to be in place by late spring.

A period of three seconds of red-light time for all directions was expected to be added to the signals at Santa Fe and Marin in one to two months.

“I think they’re all going to make things better,” Burton said. “Each change makes it better in a different way.”

Intuitive Surgical paid $30.4 million in cash on March 5 for a more than three-decade-old building about two blocks from its current headquarters, which are on Kifer Road in Sunnyvale, according to Santa Clara County property records.

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings, D-Md., said in a letter sent Thursday to White House Counsel Pat Cipollone that the administration has failed to produce documents tied to Kushner and other officials despite requests from the committee since 2017.